When Spring Whispers “Change Is the Only Constant”
I woke up last week to the sharp, bright chatter of a robin perched outside my bedroom window. Just a handful of days earlier that same branch had been bare, the sky the flat pewter of late winter, the air so still it felt frozen in place. Then—almost overnight—buds unfurled, the grass greened up, and sunrise came a few blinks earlier. As I stood there with my coffee, I felt the familiar, almost embarrassing swell of relief: Ah…we made it. Every year I’m surprised by my body’s devotion to the turning seasons, even though I’ve witnessed fifty-plus cycles of this same miracle. Spring doesn’t just happen around me; it happens to me, reminding each cell that darkness is temporary and change is one of the most dependable friends I’ll ever have.
1. The Unstoppable Rhythm of the Seasons
There’s something about early April that feels enlivening, brightening- like hope came back from the tropics where it had been vacationing for the winter. After months of gray skies and bare branches, the first green shoots push through soil, defying the weight of winter. Birds return with their morning songs, we get a little more daylight, and suddenly it seems like the whole world is humming again.
Nature never argues with this rhythm. Oaks don’t cling to brittle leaves in October, begging them not to fall. The earth doesn’t resist the freeze of January, nor does it panic when the thaw begins. It simply follows the eternal sequence—release, rest, rebirth—over and over.
We humans, meanwhile, resist with heroic determination. When we’re hurting, we want the pain to end now. When we’re happy, we clutch at the feeling, terrified it will slip away. We forget that life, like the seasons, is cyclical: darkness yields to light, storms pass, broken hearts mend, and endings compost into beginnings. Spring sings the reminder: No matter how long the winter, renewal always comes.
2. Daffodil Cosmology & the Wisdom of Impermanence
The daffodils in my Pennsylvania flower bed are early risers and master teachers. All winter their bulbs lie underground—hidden, silent, seemingly inert. Yet biologists tell us that beneath the frost those bulbs are busy: converting starch to sugar, gauging soil temperature, waiting for just enough light to justify risking the surface.
We do something similar when trudging through a personal winter—grief, burnout, spiritual grayness. Beneath the stillness our souls metabolize experience, turn old stories into compost, and quietly turn toward whatever light will come next. Hidden growth is still growth.
Physics calls this universal restlessness entropy, Buddhists name it anicca, gardeners call it compost. All agree: nothing is static. Paradoxically, that truth is a honey-laced lifeline on hard days. Heartbreak may feel endless, but it can’t last forever—reality is built on oscillation: night/day, inhale/exhale, ebb/flow. Suffering is terrible; it is also temporary.
3. Holding Hope Without Spiritual Bypass
A gentle caveat for the hope-lovers among us: celebrating impermanence is not the same as smothering sorrow with a sunny sticker. “Everything happens for a reason!” offered too soon can land like an ice cube down the spine. Spring does not shame winter for being cold, nor does it rush the thaw. It lets change unfold on its own timetable.
Authentic spirituality does the same. We can acknowledge the ache without pretending we’re fine. When we’re grieving, exhausted, or furious at the state of the world, we don’t have to feign bliss. We can simply remember, This is a season, not the whole story. Hope, then, becomes a lantern we carry with us through the dark instead of a spotlight we shine at the darkness, demanding it leave.
4. The Courage to Trust the Cycle
Trusting change requires courage—the willingness to surrender control of the timeline. A seed has no idea how long it will take to pierce the soil. It doesn’t know whether a late frost lurks or if rainfall will be generous. It just does what seeds do: grow when conditions allow, rest when they don’t.
I got a personal refresher on that lesson a few weeks ago. A Tuesday cloud of self-doubt followed me from counseling sessions to the grocery store and finally into a doom-scrolling spiral over dinner. By evening, I felt sure the heaviness would calcify forever. Then I stepped onto the porch and saw the green-purple buds on the magnolia tree in our back yard- beauty thisclose to bursting forth. Something cracked open inside me. The problems weren’t solved, but they were suddenly movable. The universe had quietly demonstrated that stuckness was an illusion.
5. Gratitude for the Temporary
Instead of fearing change, what if we practiced gratitude for it? If grief never softened, we’d forget the relief of laughter. If joy never evolved, its sweetness would dull. If winter never loosened its grip, the miracle of spring blossoms would cease to amaze us. Impermanence is the seasoning that keeps life flavorful.
So yes—change means the good times will shift, but it also guarantees that pain won’t hold the throne forever. Holding both truths at once is spiritual adulthood.
6. Simple Practices for Moving With Change
Below are two short rituals and one four-step reflection that help me partner with nature’s rhythm. Adapt them liberally.
• Five-Minute Phenology Walk
Choose a daily route—even a single lap around the block. Note one micro-shift each time: new leaf, altered birdsong, different angle of light. Training the eye to observe subtle external changes primes the heart to trust internal ones.
• “This, Too” Breath
Inhale while silently naming what’s present (“Anxiety… Joy… Numbness”). Exhale with, “This, too, will change.” Three breaths are enough to remind your nervous system that emotions are weather, not climate.
• Name • Remember • Notice • Trust
Name your current season without judgment: “This feels like winter—hard, quiet, constricted.”
Remember other seasons of struggle you’ve survived. Let the memory of past thawings steady you.
Notice micro-signs of shift—one friendly text, a single crocus, ten minutes of sunlight on your face. Tiny data points of renewal matter.
Trust the cycle. You don’t have to know when the ice will break to believe that it will.
7. A Closing Blessing for Your Personal Spring
May the robin’s morning song remind you the world turns—even when headlines insist otherwise.
May every daffodil whisper, “Hidden work counts.”
May the inevitable wilt of those same blooms teach you to bow gracefully to endings.
And when July’s heat has you longing for March’s cool promise, may you grin at the cosmic carousel—knowing another turning already gathers momentum, eager to surprise you.
Change is your oldest ally, your perennial pilgrimage partner, the backstage pass to endless resurrection. Welcome it, grieve with it, dance with it. Then watch hope root deeper each time the wheel spins.